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Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel...has teamed up with the grandson of libertarian icon Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, to try and develop a “seastead,” or a permanent and autonomous dwelling at sea. Friedman formed the “Seasteading Institute” in 2008, and Thiel has donated more than a million dollars to fund its creation...
they claim a floating city could be just years away. The real trick is finding a proper location to build this twenty-first century Atlantis. Currently, they are attempting to find a host nation that will allow the floating city somewhat close to land, for the calm waters and ability to easily travel to and from the seastead.
In recent years there have been reports of similar efforts, like the Freedom Ship, a floating city designed to house 50,000 people, with a landing strip on top of the vessel.
Such concepts raise the questions, "Can these communities create new social structures when the subconscious societal norms we all grow up with have such a powerful influence on our expectations?" and "Is the ocean really the best place to site these communities, given how powerful, treacherous, and corrosive an environment the sea is?"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:01AM
2D thinking. Even Jules Verne was more imaginative, about 145 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:32AM
I think you'll find ships cheaper and more reliable than flying cities, until working fusion and gen 2 emdrives at least.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:44AM
What about undersea habitats? Isn't this still 3D?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:53AM
Again, seasteads will be cheaper, more convenient, and safer than undersea habitats. Unless the relative cost gap shrinks, I don't know why anyone would choose to go undersea. The seastead offers autonomy over land settlements, an undersea habitat could offer the same but couldn't use solar, would be harder and more dangerous to travel to and from, would have the same problems of corrosion as boats, but harder to fix and maintain, would need more safety features, would need to be more self-sufficient (at a cost), and would cause claustrophobia (a big undersea habitat would be very expensive and harder to engineer). An open air park on a seastead would be a lot easier to do than the equivalent for an underwater habitat.
Face it, 3D sucks unless you lower the cost of electricity and materials to almost nothing.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday March 19 2015, @10:43AM
An undersea libertopia? Sounds familiar... [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by PapayaSF on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:45AM
I actually wrote "on the surface" to exclude outer space, smart guy. Yes, the bottom of the ocean could be considered the surface of the Earth. But in common usage, "surface" means on land or on (not under) the ocean. I'm discussing practical and legal issues. Captain Nemo's submarine has all the technical problems of an equivalent surface vessel, plus some. And the legal issues remain.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday March 20 2015, @01:06AM
Space is a great idea. Libertarians should definitely go there. Along with the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 19 2015, @05:08PM
Underground cities would occupy already-claimed territory.
Flying cities would still occupy airspace claimed by established governments, unless they were over the same international waters as the floating cities.
Undersea cities would have horrible commute times, what with the decompression and all, and again still have to be in international waters.
Orbital cities would require technology we don't yet have, and the commute would be extremely dangerous and expensive (though that would keep out the riff-raff - elites and their indentured servants only!)
Basically, getting off the surface doesn't actually change much.